I applaud Bis for having taken their Villa-Lobos Choros and
Bachianas Brasileiras cycles to Brazil to record during the
2000s; that’s six CDs’ worth. While I am no believer that the
true way for any composer must be found with artists from the
composer’s own homeland these are undeniably spicy, hyper-coloured
and poetically well judged readings. The technology does not
let down the artistry.

With that in the background it comes as no surprise to me that
the six orchestral discs have been gathered as a single set.
However you may well already have bought them separately. Such
is the music-making from Neschling and his soloists and technical
partners that it will be no surprise if you had decided not
wait. The seventh disc is of music for solo guitar. It was recorded
in Europe and has been pressed into service to complete the
sequence of Choros with Choros No. 1.

In 2003 the late and lamented ASV issued a collection of the
first seven Choros using Gran Canaria forces (review).
It was a good disc but there was to be no volume 2 let alone
a third. Then again you could pick up some of the Choros on
the various EMI collected editions of the composer in his own
music from the 1950s (0077776722924). Nothing however compares
with the splendour of these three discs (review
of individual discs) starting with the epic Choros 11.

In Choros 11 we encounter the only independent big name soloist
in the whole project. It is Cristina Ortiz who has recorded
epic V-L before: the Momoprecoce and the Bachianas Brasileiras
No. 3 (effectively a four movement piano concerto) are major
pieces which she tackled for EMI with Ashkenazy when he was
a tyro baton-wielder (review).
She also set down all five of the composer’s piano concertos
for Decca. Ashkenazy returned to No. 11 for the outstanding
version that is to be found on a single disc on the Ondine label.

The style of BB3 is romantically exultant rather than heavy
with sultry impressions of the Brazilian jungle. There' s something
of that style in Choros 11. The central movement is wonderfully
life-enhancing. It's a fine heroic work with none of the wild
street or jungle stuff. This work, on a grand scale, dates from
1928 and was premiered in Rio de Janeiro in 1942 conducted by
the composer. The dedicatee Artur Rubinstein was at the piano.
You must hear it. The quality of the recording, which is truly
awesome, can be gained by listening to the last five minutes.
Ah! that rasping edge to the brass!

More obviously intimate and for solo piano is Choros 5. It is
incantatory, rolling, mesmeric yet develops a brightness which
might almost be John Ireland after all that ecstatic tolling.
The railroad syncopation of the last section leaves us in no
doubt that this is music tapping into the irrepressible vigour
of South America. The music then sinks, with resignation or
satiation, into the slow incantation from which it arose. The
Settimino is delightfully alive with soloistic activity
constantly in collage-kaleidoscopic action.

The Choros 7 has elements of the national native character largely
omitted from Choros 11. There is some Stravinsky in this and
coincidentally some Lambert as well. This music cheekily and
cheerily winks, gleams and glints. Bird-song also cuts through
the texture adding peppery harmonies and a feral pulse.

Volume 2 includes two of the purely orchestral Choros: 6 and
9. No.8 is also there and is for large orchestra and two pianos.
All three are each between 20 and 25 minutes duration. No. 6
includes plenty of native Brazilian instruments but used discreetly.
Barking brass nicely offsets the jungle gurgles at 3:45. It
is overall a work of surging and blooming power.

From extravagant power we come to the winsome intimacy and sweetly
sentiment-infused Choros 1 from 1920 for solo guitar.

Onwards to Choros 8! This is also known as Choros de Danca.
It too makes use of native instruments. It bustles and hip-sways
from the start. Strange exotic birds weave their birdsong into
the material. It was written in Paris and Rio and premiered
in Paris in 1927 at the Concerts Colonne - the composer conducting.

Choros 4 is for four brass instruments - grumpy, subtle, anxious,
and at last swept into the carnival with popular street music
as at 4.50. Wonderfully gritty playing.

Choros 9 is also pleasing. It’s from 1929 but had to wait until
1942 before its premiere which took place in Rio. It's a work
in which the orchestra is again buttressed by various folk instruments.
It's another epic-spirited work with grand matters mixed with
hypnotic warmth and jungle carnival vitality. Just relish the
deep grunt and rasp of the writing, the bird-song at 18:04 and
the commercial street samba-rumba of the brass. It rises to
a celebratory climax in the last uproariously joyous pages.

Volume 3 starts with the major work that is the Introduction
to the Choros with a substantial role for solo guitar. This
prepares the way for the first Choros for solo guitar. Interesting
that at 5.13 the music evokes Ravel's Bolero. There is
some slippery and timeless music for flutes coursing high and
soft at 6:55 - it's almost a sentimental film score.

The two Choros Bis were intended as epilogues to the complete
cycle. Indeed VL had thoughts that the whole cycle would be
performed at a single or several concerts. The First, for violin
and cello, sings capriciously through the violin. The cello
acts as rhythm man. There is more lyrical work for the cello
in the second of the two.

The Choros No. 2 is for flute and clarinet. It soon gurgles
its street rhythm and sway with the flute adding bird-song streamers
to the unwinding clarinet line.

Choros No. 3 Pice-Pau (Woodpecker) is a glorious seismic immersion
in the street-jungle style for male choir and wind instruments.

Choros 12 is a big, swaying piled-high hay wagon of a work.
It starts with a teeming rhythmic seethe. Soon a lovely sentimental
melody enters the room and this is developed to glowing effect.
This sultry rhapsodic work soon enjoys jungle whoops and chirping
on a grand scale. It was premiered in Boston on 21 February
1945 with the Boston Symphony; the composer conducting

Choros 10 is for orchestra and mixed choir. It is one of his
most mysterious works: quiet, spare and spectral at times. Mysteries
are hinted at and spells unfold. As it moves into its second
half the pecked and sometimes ecstatically wailed choral part
becomes more prominent with great upblasts of brass expostulation.
There is something of Orff's Carmina Burana here. One
wild outburst reminds one of nothing so much as Walton's 1931
Belshazzar’s Feast. Could he have heard Choros No. 10
or seen the score?

After Choros 12 there were to be two other big Choros. Sadly
these (13 and 14) were lost when the composer was unable to
pay the rent for his flat in Paris where the scores were kept.
No. 13 was for two orchestras and band while No. 14 sported
a huge number of performers including instrumentalists and singers.
It is said also to have used quarter tones in the vocal parts.

The Bachianas Brasileiras are much more than museum case exhibits.
They’re certainly not pastiche. Regard them more as a free expression
by Villa-Lobos of his love for Bach’s music. The include the
most ubiquitous of Villa-Lobos’s works the BB No. 5 made famous
by the recording by Victoria de los Angeles. The version here
hits the right marques but stands a shoulder down from de los
Angeles. No. 4 begins with a shadow of Bach’s Partita BWV
830 before developing into a phantasmagoria of display at
the hands of Jean Louis Steuerman. The Sixth is a subtly intricate
construct for two instruments. The First is for an orchestra
of swaying and swinging cellos and there’s plenty of rhythmic
torque. The Seventh is very accessible and luxuriant and the
Sao Paulo forces seem instinctively au fait with the style and
manner. Be aware that when David
Harbin reviewed this disc some years back he spoke highly
of the Michael Tilson Thomas BMG-RCA recording – a version I
have not heard. The stern Ninth, is heard here in versions for
string choir and a cappella voices. The impressive Bachianas
Brasileiras No. 8 is not about surface glamour. Good to have
the chance to hear the Fourth also in its versions for solo
piano and for orchestra. Bis draws on earlier recordings from
their treasury. From the 1990s comes the Berlin Philharmonic
Wind Quintet in the tastily swung Quinteto em forma de choros.
Anders Miolin’s cool and revealing cycle of the music for solo
guitar reminds us of Villa-Lobos’s engaging prowess in the genre.
Andrés Segovia was the vital spark for this music. That last
disc serves as a palate-freshener after some the more voluptuous
eruptions of the lavish orchestral scores.

There have been several cycles of these works on LP and CD with
other Brazilian artists on local labels. I have not heard these
– but would like to.

Cleverly Bis have side-stepped the competition by fusing the
two cycles. No-one else has done that. However be aware of Batiz’s
brilliant cycle of the BB on EMI. From the same label comes
another big boxed set Villa-Lobos par lui-même. It runs
to six CDs of the orchestral music in performances by Heitor
Villa-Lobos conducting L'Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion
Française, with Fernand Dufrene (flute), Maurice Cliquennois
(clarinet); Jacques Neilz (violin), Henri Bronschwak (cello),
Manoel Braune, Aline van Berentzen, Magda Tagliaferro and Felicia
Blumental (piano); Rene Plessier (bassoon) and Victoria de los
Angeles (soprano). That incomplete Parisian cycle is in 1950s
mono. Ian
Lace’s review of one of the CDs gives a good flavour of
the experience. Match these with the Ortiz Decca collection
of all five piano concertos and CPO’s very impressive complete
edition of all twelve symphonies and you have much of the non-vocal
V-L commodiously available to explorers, the curious and collectors.
The solo piano music is on Naxos and the complete string quartets
can be had in a delightful boxed set from the inspired Cuarteto
Latinoamericano on Dorian Sono Luminus.

You can still get each of the Bis discs individually but at
a very considerable total cost for the seven.

The notes are good and interesting. The few sung words are in
the booklet

Look at the playing times on these CDs. One is in excess of
81 minutes. And, by the way, I had no trouble playing it.

This set is the place to go for a single collection conjoining
the Choros and the Bachianas Brasileiras - brilliantly ignited
and sustained from intimate solo works to seismic extravagance.

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